Today's News

Environmental friendliness, or what we call “green,” is enjoying unprecedented popularity. Hollywood celebrities can now be seen on cable TV showing off the solar panels on their multi-million dollar mansions.

Indeed, you will even hear that “green is the new black.”

On one level, that’s great. It’s hard to find fault with people seeking to reduce their environmental footprint. But on another level, it’s troubling.

Las Vegas resident Alex Aragon has repeatedly asked the city to form a commission to provide recommendations for the overhaul of the city’s charter. He did so again last week.

The charter has been the city’s constitution since the two Las Vegases joined nearly four decades ago.

Aragon told the City Council at its meeting last week that he understands the city has much on its plate but that it needs to form a commission soon, so it can place proposed changes on the ballot in time for the March 2010 municipal election.

Mom had to rescue me at Wal-Mart. I ran out of oxygen. Had to abandon the shopping cart with the door greeter. When this oxygen stops, I am physically drained of oxygen from my body. It is like someone squeezing the life out of me. I have to talk myself to breathe until more oxygen is available.

Say solar energy and people immediately think about high tech solar panels and sophisticated electronics. While that’s one way to capture solar energy, price puts it out of the hands of many. There’s one form of solar, though, that is within the grasp of of most of us, and that is passive solar heating.

In its simplest form, passive solar heating means setting up your home and land to make maximum use of the sun’s heat.

In August, my youngest child Jackson, who had just turned two, became very sick, with Pertussis or “whooping cough.” I had chosen to wait to immunize my children for personal reasons. While holding my small and frail son in the emergency room hospital bed as he gasped for air and struggled to breathe, I realized I may have seriously endangered his life in not having him immunized. I feared the worst.

Marcellino Ortiz, who will join the San Miguel County Commission in January, has resigned from a electric utility serving northeastern New Mexico.

During the summer, members of the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative enacted a bylaw requiring board members and the utility’s attorney to resign when they run for and hold partisan political offices.

The Las Vegas City Schools, Superintendent Richard Romero, School Social Worker Jennie Mae Ortiz, and I, the mental health counselor, would like to extend appreciation to the following for their support during the Interpersonal Violence Prevention Training that was held at Memorial Middle School Oct. 15: